


Scratching (I've Got Your Back)

by JohnlockAndATardis



Category: TANIS - Fandom, The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gifts for Tall Paul, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6630583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnlockAndATardis/pseuds/JohnlockAndATardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following Alex's sleep note, Nic may just overreact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scratching (I've Got Your Back)

_He's in a rural hospital in a town he's never heard of, brought there the moment that they could get cell signal. A faint beeping within the realm of later that lays beyond a nondescript brown door routinely breaks the quiet of the waiting room, the small television on the wall silently displaying the news for that county. There's a mother and her young son across the room, eying them as though they are a curious and foreign attraction at some strange freak show. Nic cannot blame the the reaction. They're certainly a sight, having stumbled in from the unceasing downpour like stragglers from the sea. Strand is typing impatiently at his phone, trying to make himself look busy and preserve his dignity despite his askew glasses and the mud which stains himself as equally it does Nic. Alex is squashed between them, nursing an arm that quite possibly is broken, dabbing gingerly with a tissue and her good hand at the last of the blood from a deep scrape. That leaves him to finish off their trio of misfits. He'd come in limping on what is most certainly a twisted ankle, and had earned a look almost of sympathy from the nurse, before she’d whisked away a very obviously pregnant woman and her panicked husband. That same nurse had passed by ten minutes ago to tell them their information was being processed and they would be looked to soon. Since then, they'd been left waiting. Nic is starting to go stir crazy. He drums his fingers impatiently against his rain-soaked and torn jeans, runs a hand into his dirty hair, taps his legs. He's not usually one for such restlessness, but ever since Tanis he finds himself losing time. The minutes stretch out like hours and shrink into seconds upon their own accord as though the lungs of an unseen beast._

_Nic stops his thoughts where they lay in his head, gathering the fragments together before they can disperse and breed into the blue that still sometimes edges it's way into his consciousness. He casts his eyes back to his left, looking for some distraction for his mind. He notices Alex had taken to leaning against Strand now, her eyes slowly drooping with the fading of the night’s excitement. The sluggish weariness about her becomes infectious as it sweeps over the hospital. Strand has focused his attention on the journalist, the child had stopped playing with the toys before him, even the late night news coverage seems to have softened, quieted as the last of the waking world settles in to rest. Nic slips a hand into his pocket, retrieving a cell phone saved from ruin only a case’s heavy presence._

Any way you can speed up hospital paperwork?

_The reply is nearly instantaneous._

Nicodemus Silver, what have you done?

_On his part, he acted exactly as he was certain anyone in his position would._

  
-

  
     It all started the day Alex had announced just where she would be vacationing. Nic had been envisioning white sand beaches for her, somewhere warm, away from all the chaos and fear. But Alex had never been simple, it was a feature she lacked entirely. According to a conversation with an eggnog-laden Mrs. Reagan the first time Alex brought him for a misfits family Christmas, Alex had been a storm of chaos since birth. Nic believed it, he knew just how stubborn she could often prove. But it was also his duty to at least have at least attempted to convince her out of what was most certainly either a death trap or a cry for help.

     “No.” His voice was as firm as he could have managed in that moment without appearing unfriendly or unwilling to compromise. Alex had clearly not believed for a second his amiable tone, and had met it quite instantly with a withering gaze usually reserved for the Skeptical Doctor Strand and his -admittedly exhausting and ultimately asinine- determination to find fault in any views not aligned with his own. Nic could count only on one hand the number of times he’d been on the receiving end of that gaze. Even after upwards of nine years, it had not gotten even fractionally less terrifying.

    “You don't get a say in this, Nic,” she had very sternly informed him. “I don't think that you should.”

     He shifted then in his chair uncomfortably. She’d spoken sensible words, and he’d known that she was, for the most, right. But the worry had still remained. He pressed on.

     “Okay, but don't you think you owe it, not just to yourself, but to the fans, to be in as clear a state of mind as possible? I don't know that this is what's best for you, or for the show.”

     Her expression had not softened, and in fact had only tightens into one of stone. Nic couldn't blame her for the anger in her eyes or the betrayal he knew she’d felt. By then she had already expressed her feelings towards Terry and Paul for their phrasing of what was clearly a suspension as a vacation. Nic had known even then that it would eventually pass, for her anger had always been fairly short lived, but under her harsh stare he had taken a moment to wonder how long that would be.

     Alex took then a long moment to gather herself before she responded, and it had left a long silence between them as she’d composed herself. Finally then, her lips had parted.

     "I don't think…” Alex paused, she sounded strained. “I don't think you're being reasonable. The Black Tapes are important to me, the fans too. But it's hardly fair that they, or my devotion to them, should dictate where I go on my vacation.” She pinched her eyes shut when she said it, as though the word had physically pained her. “I am an adult Nic. This isn't up for discussion.”

    He’d sighed then and had conceded. “Fine. What about the service up there? How are we supposed to get in touch with you, in case we need to?”

    “My friend told me there's a gas station that's about the cut off for the cell service. I'll drive back there every few days to send you my sleep journals and an update.”

     He didn't like it, he would come to regret it for a time, but it had been all he could do, and all she would have been willing to give.

  
-

  
     Nic can't be entirely certain what he might have expected to be in the first sleep note he'd received, but it certainly hadn't been the mess of… whatever _that_ had been. She'd sounded somehow even more exhausted than before she had left. It crept into the already-present breaks of deprivation and general tiredness from slumber interrupted, and had peeled away at her layer-by-layer. And then, god help him, she mentioned the scratching. His first, his all-consuming, red lights flashing, alarms blazing thought was that she was in danger. Real, big bad danger. The idea that she had been so alone in a cabin - _a cabin, a cabin, a cabin_ \- swelled up in his mind like a rising tide come to scatter the bones of unbidden memories at his door. He’d posted the sleep note in a hurry, uploaded it to SoundCloud and Stitcher and iTunes like breadcrumbs, shot MK a message. _Going to find Alex, something's wrong._ He gave her the address too, but firmly refused any help, too worried about the time, about Alex, about the danger he had perceived.

     He'd just thrown open the door, no more than ten minutes after the podcast had finished uploading, with a duffle bag in his hand holding a various assortment of weapons salvaged from the PNWS kitchen, when he found himself face-to-face with Doctor Richard Strand. The good doctor had been panting, he’d looked as though he'd just run the entire (fairly considerable, given the small time frame) distance from his Seattle hotel.

     “Where is she?”

     Nic had froze at the sight of Strand and had stared blankly at the man when he’d provided his question, having been still trying then to consume and process the data in his mind. He could see that the man was wet -he’d been absolutely dripping with water, if Nic remembered right- and was dressed in a disheveled, impromptu manner. His expression had bore an impatience even more than what was typical of Doctor Strand, as he had huffed out, “Miss Reagan. Where is she?”

     He’d decided in a fit of what perhaps had been momentary madness to not answer. Instead, Nic had brushed past Strand in favor of his car. Richard hadn't needed any more signal in the moment than Nic throwing open his passenger door and shouting for the doctor to get in.

     There’s no way Nic Silver would have let Alex die on his watch.

  
-

  
    With every mile of his drive, his anxiety had only increased. Nic couldn't get the image out of his head, nor then the thought that they might be too late, that they could find Alex in some horrible way. The storm had chased them from Seattle to the dense forestry of winding roads, and it had never once let up in how it had beat down on the hood of his car and pinged off of the metal, filling the silence between himself and Strand. Nic pushed hard on the pedal and against the speed limit, he hadn't been thinking of the law. His only focus then was getting to Alex.

     They lost cell signal shortly after they passed a small gas station with two pumps and a faded plastic sign that had shone dimly into the night. It was about then, Nic recalls, that the road conditions had shifted from smoothly paved blacktop to pot hole ridden back roads that the state likely hadn't touched in years. He finds himself surprised in reflection that the stripped surfaces hadn't torn out the car’s underside, or at least sent them into a ditch. They'd been lucky, Nic thinks. Despite the breakneck speeds they were safe when the car slowed towards the mile long stretch of mud that was the driveway to Alex Reagan’s then current, albeit temporary, residence. There had been absolutely no way that his car could have passed through that slick and make it back out, so they'd abandoned it for the time. He’s pressed a rolling pin into Strand’s hand despite the dubious look of ‘I am a scientist and a doctor and have multiple degrees, this is utterly ridiculous,’ and had retrieved a heavy sauce pan for himself before they two had stepped into the rain. Like heros under the heavy clouds they had begun their path towards the cabin, trudging through the deep sludge that had stuck up to their ankles and slicked their every movemenr. The slender light of the night’s moon had been absolutely no match for the thick storm, which had forced them into shadows that left them to their phones and the weak beam of light they provided. Needless to say, it hadn't been much of a help.

    They were just about to the cabin - Nic remembers that the lights had been off when they’d come upon it- when a shadowy figure had darted into their field of view. It had arms that were impossibly, disproportionately long, one more so than the other, and when it had taken notice of them it had even quick to scutter back the way it came. The two men had darted then towards the house, Strand having claimed the back while Nic took to the front. He’d crept slowly about its face, and had tried in that time to not make a sound, though the feat proved hard with the  _slurp, slurp, slurp_  of mud beneath his feet. He’d slipped and slid quite a lot, and had been balancing himself against the cabin when he’d turned its corner. That had been when a whistling sound had broken the damp air, and Nic can still feel an ache when he remembers how a shadowy form had struck him hard against his thigh. Nic had grunted in heavy pain, but with adrenaline in his veins at the time it had been second to the fear he’d felt for Alex. He’d forced himself to remain standing and it had been to his advantage, for the creature had darted past him the moment he’d been disabled. Nic rounded despite the sting, and had chased after in desperate pursuit.

     Up through the sloppy grass and towards the trees he’d followed the creature, and had found himself with some form of an advantage given that his legs were longer than its own. He’d been fast as one could with the conditions, which seemed then to have surprised the figure given how it glanced back to him time and time again. The shadowy form pressed hard and fast over unstable ground, and all the while Nic had chased after. He didn't stop even as the limbs of gangly, skeletal trees reached and pulled at him, as though they had aimed to slow his presence, pressing on and on. Ahead of him the figure had been equally impaired by their biting presence, and somewhere in his mind Nic knew then that they couldn't keep this up forever.

     The race ended in what he can only declare partially accident, half purposeful. He was just a foot or so away when he’d made the -probably foolish choice- to take down the creature. His heart already having been pounding in his chest Nic pressed himself faster, before shoving hard against the ground and vaulting forward with as much energy as he possessed. Or, that was the plan, but he’d found himself blocked by a gnarled root which tangled at his ankle and had jarred it into a queer angle. He fell with an unbidden yelp, catching at the leg of the creature as he did so. The shadow figure’s flesh had been remarkably soft beneath his hand, and when it tumbled down it released an all-too human cry that was paired by a sickly cracking.

     “Alex?” Nic blurted out through the searing pain that sent his teeth gritting. The shadowy form turned and Nic squinted through the darkness until his unfocused and dotted vision could make out the blurry but absolutely definite form of one Alexandra Reagan. She crawled forward through the mud and damp grass on one hand, until they were close enough that he see her properly. Her eyes had cast down to his hands and the pan he still clutched like it was his life, and an expression almost of amusement briefly replaced the pain before curiosity claimed all.

     “What are you doing out here?”

     “Your sleep note… I was worried something was wrong. Doctor Strand and I-”

     She cut him off. “Richard?” There was, he remembered, a noticeable shift in her voice. “You both came here.”

     “We thought you were in trouble.” The confession had rang as strange in his ears, and it was about then that Nic had realized that admitting he’d been worried she was being attacked by demons sounded very much so not good. Alex crooked a brow and glanced dubiously at him until her expression could worm the truth from him.

     “We -I- thought there were demons,” he reluctantly provided, and cast his gaze down. It took exactly half a second before Alex Reagan dissolved into giggles beside him, and her laughter swelled up to an almost eerie presence in the lonely expanse of trees, echoing across their trunks into a soft and distant whisper.

     “You thought I was a demon?” Alex demanded when her giddiness had died. Nic -perhaps childishly- took the defensive.

     "What did you think that I was?”

     Her face grew pseudo-stern. “An intruder,” she answered, as though she was absolutely confident in this. He met her response with an arched brow that was returned with a flush noticeable even in the darkness if only for the short distance between them. Alex rose, gingerly treating her arm before she’d extended her good hand towards Nic.

     “Can you stand?”

     Nic tried, shoving himself up and stumbling. His ankle rolled beneath him, but he was saved from falling back by the force of Alex’s weight, pushing against him. She let Nic use her as a crutch, and together like frayed rag dolls they made their way back to the cabin.

     They found Strand searching about the small, pleasant structure, and the combination of pleasure-meets-shame of finding Alex in this condition was sketched across his face, cast into a sudden and too harsh light which Alex flicked to life. She eased Nic into a chair and retrieved some towels, moving to ready a pot of tea when Strand took the kettle from her hand and guided her to sit. The good doctor retrieved ice compression for his mud-streaked companions, fetching three mugs from the bottom shelf of the cupboards. Strand is a beverage snob, but he didn't display any distaste at the off-brand tea bags that were tucked in the pantry beside a bag of fudge-round cookies and unopened saltines.

     “So. Demons?” Alex asked. Strand’s face pulled into a wince, and she was laughing once more.

-

It started with a raccoon, _Nic decides upon. He can nearly hear the laughter through the phone, seeming to illuminate the waiting room as three dots appear on his screen, and a moment later a message._

I’ve got your back. 

 


End file.
